Life Dominating Problems

[00:00:20] Hello and welcome to become a competent Biblical Counselor. My name is Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled Life Dominating Problems

[00:00:31] So if you ever had anybody say this to you, I find that I just can't stop getting drunk or I just can't stop looking at pornography or gambling or cheating or stealing or things like that

[00:00:49] Even though they've become a Christian and they've tried they just cannot succeed well, which wrong?

[00:00:56] Well with that and that kind of question comes time and again, and there's much that needs to be said and answer to it

[00:01:03] That we can't even begin to say on a brief time of discussion such as we have here

[00:01:08] But let me say one thing that is very often neglected I think by Christian people

[00:01:13] And because we have neglected, I think we have failed to minister properly from the Word of God to people who are struggling with what I'd like to call life-dominating problems

[00:01:25] There are many life-dominating problems. I guess the way to discover whether a problem is a life-dominating problem or not

[00:01:32] Is to look in the Scriptures and to see whether an individual can be characterized by a word, you know, we can be called a man

[00:01:41] But when you're called as in 1 Corinthians 6 a fornicator, a dollar a dollar, a delta or a feminine person, a homosexual, a thief, a covetous man, a drunkard

[00:01:57] There's our problem for today a reviler a swindler or something of that sort

[00:02:04] It's interesting to notice that God has put a title on the person who does those kind of things

[00:02:10] And he didn't say that you were just a man who does it, but he called the person a drunkard or he called him an adulterer

[00:02:18] Or he called in a foreigner cater or he called him a homosexual

[00:02:22] So there are certain problems that so dominator persons living certain kinds of sins into which he has following against God

[00:02:30] That have gotten such a hold upon him. That his whole life is dominated his whole life is affected by that particular sin

[00:02:39] Not that he doesn't sin other sins, but this sin is so dominating

[00:02:44] So permeating in all aspects and areas of his life that it just simply takes over everything and colors everything and everything is done in relationship to it

[00:02:55] For example, we often hear about drugs today in the abuse of drugs

[00:03:00] We hear about pornography, we hear about gambling, we hear about cheating and lying on and on and on it goes

[00:03:09] And sometimes young people are enticed into the drug scene by saying, ahah

[00:03:15] The drug experience will give you a mind expanding experience

[00:03:19] Well exactly the opposite is true. It's become a mind and life narrowing experience

[00:03:27] First the person gets a little bit of kick

[00:03:31] It gets a little euphoria from the drug perhaps he gets some kind of experience, some kind of psychedelic experience

[00:03:39] Whatever it may be but pretty soon that worse than and he needs more

[00:03:44] That worse than or and he needs still more and he begins to get hung on this thing

[00:03:51] And when he's hooked on the drug he begins to live for the drug his whole life becomes oriented around the drug

[00:03:59] He has to have the drug at all cost and it does cost

[00:04:04] Not only him, his time and his energy and the injuries to his body into his relationships

[00:04:11] But it costs him financially so maybe he even steals or he steals everything he has or whatever

[00:04:20] But his whole life becomes dominated but with one passionate thought

[00:04:25] I've got to have my drugs today. I've got to get those drugs at all costs now

[00:04:33] Everything he does is oriented toward the drugs and so rather than expanding his mind

[00:04:39] The drugs he narrows a person's mind

[00:04:42] Well the same thing happens with every life dominating situation

[00:04:47] All of life is focused into one channel everything surrounds us one little in its orbit

[00:04:53] This one little center, this nucleus of the person's living

[00:04:57] And rather than making God the center of one's life as every Christian should

[00:05:02] This particular sin and its propagation becomes the dominant factor in a person's living

[00:05:08] That's why when dealing with a life dominating problem

[00:05:12] We have to deal with the whole of a person's life or the change will be unsuccessful

[00:05:18] The person will find himself going back again to the same old problem again

[00:05:23] And again and once again

[00:05:25] Back on the kiss and makeup sinned Rome with God in his neighbor

[00:05:29] So what about drunkenness? Well, let's look at the patients 518

[00:05:34] Where we have this answer in terms of the life dominating problem

[00:05:39] Paul says do not get drunk with wine

[00:05:42] For that is dissipation

[00:05:45] But be filled with the spirit

[00:05:47] Now you see it's very plain that drunkenness is sin

[00:05:52] It's not sickness

[00:05:54] It's not a disease

[00:05:55] We don't speak about alcoholism as some kind of disease

[00:05:59] The Bible calls it drunkenness and it calls it sin

[00:06:04] And in 1 Corinthians 6

[00:06:06] We read that that sin can be overcome

[00:06:09] Just as arrested those things that I read earlier

[00:06:12] All of them can be overcome because it says such were some of you

[00:06:18] A person who is in a life dominating problem in the throws of it

[00:06:23] And entangled in the web of it can be removed from it

[00:06:27] So here is what the verse tells us how

[00:06:30] It says do not be drunk with wine but be filled with the spirit

[00:06:35] Now there's a tremendously interesting contrast in that verse

[00:06:40] As wine when a man gets struck by it dominates his life

[00:06:45] Everything he does is influenced by it

[00:06:48] His speech is slurred by it

[00:06:49] His thinking is conditioned by it

[00:06:51] His walk is gate everything else

[00:06:55] Everything he does is affected by this dominating factor in his life

[00:07:00] So his whole life needs to be reoriented

[00:07:03] And everything has to be affected instead by the spirit of God as a life

[00:07:08] Dominating factor in his life

[00:07:11] Just as wine gets into the whole of his life

[00:07:14] When it gets whole of a man and he becomes a drunken

[00:07:16] So the spirit of God now must come in and get hold of every aspect of his life

[00:07:22] It's not just a matter of stopping drinking

[00:07:24] It's a matter of dealing with every aspect of life

[00:07:30] It's a matter of the spirit of God taking his Persian power

[00:07:34] And getting it into every part of a man's existence

[00:07:37] When he is in trouble at work, things don't go well

[00:07:40] He runs through the bottle

[00:07:42] When he runs through the bottle, things don't go well at work

[00:07:45] When he's having trouble at home, he runs through the bottle

[00:07:48] When he runs through the bottle and comes home, his wife gives him more trouble at home

[00:07:53] When he has trouble at home, he has trouble at work

[00:07:55] When he has trouble at work, he runs through the bottle

[00:07:58] The whole you see is interrelated because he's one person

[00:08:03] You can't smack your finger with your thumb with a hammer

[00:08:08] And have anything else not be affected by it that day

[00:08:11] You're a whole person and when a life dominating problem gets in there

[00:08:16] It gets into every phase of your life

[00:08:19] There's a breakdown of the physical side of man

[00:08:22] There's a breakdown of the social side, there's a breakdown in the family life

[00:08:27] There's a breakdown in the work habits of the individual

[00:08:30] So if a man really wants to change, he really wants to overcome drunkenness

[00:08:36] He can't just focus upon stopping drinking

[00:08:40] He has to look at all the things in his life and every area that had been affected by that bottle

[00:08:46] And then every area he has to begin to do by the grace of God

[00:08:51] What God says ought to be done in each of those areas

[00:08:55] That means he's going to have to work on his relationships with his family

[00:08:59] He's going to have to work on the patterns down at work

[00:09:02] Where he works with other people at the office

[00:09:05] He's going to have to work on something else

[00:09:08] Whatever it may be in every area of his life that has been affected by it

[00:09:13] By the life dominating problem

[00:09:16] Drunkenness is a life problem

[00:09:18] It is not just one problem among many

[00:09:21] And when we need to be changed, we need nothing less

[00:09:25] Than the spirit of God filling our lives

[00:09:27] That is getting into every aspect of our lives

[00:09:31] So dominating our lives that our family life, our work life, our physical life

[00:09:37] Everything is influenced by the spirit of God

[00:09:41] O Lord those who are in the throws of this problem today need help

[00:09:45] Lead some to Christ that they may be saved

[00:09:47] We pray, putting their trust in Him as the Savior who died on the cross

[00:09:51] In the place of guilty sinners

[00:09:53] In your children give strength at the spirit, it changes them and all phases of life

[00:09:58] For Christ's sake

[00:10:00] Thanks for listening

[00:10:02] Look at your life problems, be ready to help people with life problems

[00:10:06] They can be overcome

[00:10:07] They just need to do it God's way

[00:10:10] Thanks for listening and be blessed